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One of the well-known Aberdeen implement and machine makers was Ben Reid & Co. It was also known for its nurseries and forestry business which it continued to undertake exclusively from 1906 onwards.

By the mid 1860s the business described itself as “Ben Reid & Co., agricultural implement makers, Bon Accord Works, Justice MillLane, Aberdeen. In 1867 it described itself as Ben Reid & Co., seedsmen, nurserymen and implement makers, Aberdeen. A decade later its addresses were at 16 Guild Street and Bon Accord Works, Justice Mills. By the mid 1890s it also had premises at Fettercairn and Laurencekirk.

The company undertook a wide range of trades in implement and machine makers, as an agricultural implement agent, a maker, engineer, engineer and millwright, galvanised merchant, garden chair maker, garden tool maker, horticultural builder, iron bridge builder, iron fence and hurdle manufacturer, iron founder, iron gate manufacturer, makchine maker, mechanical engineer, millwright, weigh bride maker, weighing machine maker, wire fence maker. and wire worker.

As an agent it associated itself with leading names of other implement and machine makers. In the 1860s they included Samuelson & Co., Banbury, Ransomes, Sims & Head, Ipswich, E. H. Bengal, Heybridge, Alexander Jack & Sons, Maybole. J. & T. Young, Ayr, Shotts Iron Co. In the 1890s they included Massey Harris Co Ltd, London, Tangyes Ltd, Birmingham and Glasgow. It was a regular exhibitor to the Highland Show especially from the late 1860s onwards.

It was also an award-winning company, receiving a silver medal from the Royal Agricultural Society of England for its patent disc broadcast sower in 1872 and for its farmyard manure spreader. This was quite an accolade as few Scottish companies won medals form the Society. From that Society it also won a second prize for its improved heavy harrows in 1872. In Scotland it won a number of silver medals form the Highland Society. They included one for its lever drill in 1868, and its collection in 1870, 1871 1872, 1873, 1874, 1875 and 1876. It entered a number of its implements for the Highland Society’s trials. These included a broadcast manure distributor in 1884, manure distributer in 1886, and a grass seed sowing machine in 1887. Members of the company also held patents, including ons for improvements in straining or tightening wire in 1866, improvements in drill sowing machines, horse rakes and horse hoes in 1867, improvements in seed sowing machines in 1869, and an improved spanner or nut key in 1870.

William Anderson was one of the partners of the company. On 19 July 1893 the Scottish agricultural newspaper, North British Agriculturist, provided a short biography of him. It provides a good deal of information on the name and the company he was at at the helm of:

“Mr. Anderson of Messrs Ben Reid & Co., Bon-Accord Works, Aberdeen, is one of the best known and most highly-respected leaders in the ranks of the agricultural engineers. Mr Anderson has risen from the ranks, for his father was a country blacksmith, and he learned that trade with his father. His energies, however, could not find full scope in a country smithy, and before long he became the travelling representative of Messrs Murray & Co., agricultural implement makers, Banff, and by his characteristic energy and good management he soon wrought that business up to a very flourishing state. His marked success and sterling qualities soon attracted the attention of Mr George Reid, who had joined the business established by his uncle, Mr Ben Reid, and on the retirement of the latter gentleman had become the partner in the firm of Ben Reid & Co. This business was originally confined to the seed trade, but the implement department, grafted upon it shortly afterwards, expended so rapidly that the seed business was formed into a separate business under different properties, all the resources of the Bon Accord Works being taxed to the utmost to supply the demands upon them for agricultural implements. In 1876, Mr George Reid decided to select two partners, who, as he felt certain, would be able to make the Bon-Accord Works an enduring monument to the memory of their founder, Mr Ben Reid, and his selection fell upon Mr Anderson and Mr Garvie. These gentlemen closed with this invitation, and since the death of Mr George Reid, in 1879, they have been the sole partners in the firm. The Bon-Accord Works are among the most extensive of the kind in the united Kingdom, and they are splendidly equipped with machinery of the most modern and most approved construction, many of the machines used in these works being the products of the inventive genius of Messrs Anderson & Garvie. In addition to a very large home business, the firm conduct an immense foreign business, and in every country under the sun, where improved methods of cultivation are used, there are the products of the Bon-Accord Works are well known and highly appreciated. Their principal products are the Bon-Accord reapers and ploughs, threshing machines, seed drills, and broadcast sowing machines. They also do a large business in the manufacture of ornamental fences and gates. Mr Anderson regularly attends all the leading shows in the United Kingdom, so that he is better known to the show-goers than Mr Garvie, who is constantly at the head of the business conducted in the works. Mr Anderson is a gentleman of a very marked individuality and robust independence. He is no supple-tongued salesman, who can talk any unwilling purchaser into buying his goods. On the contrary, he stands secure in the high reputation which his firm have long been held for the excellence of their products; and while he displays his goods in the most attractive style, and has a pleasant word for every one, he makes a very strict point of avoiding any appearance of pressing sales: and any cheap jack who attempts to beat down his prices invariably gets short shrift at his hands. It is safe to say also that no one stands higher in the estimation of his fellow exhibitors than he does, and a good proof of that is found in the fact that for four years in succession he was unanimously elected President of the Scottish Agricultural Engineers, from which post he retired only two years ago, and only a few weeks ago he was unanimously elected President of the Royal Tradesmen in Aberdeen.

Ben Reid & Co. – an eminent agricultural engineering company from the second half of the nineteenth century whose activities continued until 1907.

Headstones can provide a great deal of information about people and their past lives, of families and their relations and employment. Some of the older gravestones, especially from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, have elaborate decorations. These include pictures of rural life.

One such gravestone is at Skipness in Argyll. It includes an engraving of a plough team using the Old Scotch plough. This plough required to be pulled by a number of oxen, cows or other animals. In the gravestone the plough team comprises four oxen, working as two pairs. The plough would have been made of mouldboard. There is one ploughman (who looks like he is having to work hard). Usually there would have been another to help to guide the draught animals.

Harvesting turnips was always hard work. Heavy and wet turnips that were not always easy to pull and wet shows could make for an even harder job.

Scottish makers led the way in the development of turnip harvesters. MacDonald Brothers of Portsoy who had led the way in their harvester in the 1890s (winning the HASS turnip lifting trial of 1895 against other leading makers), continued to make the “Ideal Lifter” into the 1950s when versions were available for use with horses, as well as with tractors including Ferguson and David Brown.

Sir George Steuart Mackenzie wrote a survey of the agriculture of Ross-shire for the Board of Agriculture in 1810. It includes a short description of ploughs and ploughing in that county.

“The plough which is used by the common people, is an extremely awkward imitation of the improved implement used by the best farmers. But it is so calculated to turn up the ground, that the person who holds it experiences more fatigue in twisting and turning, and pushing and pulling it, than the horses and other cattle employed in the draught. The plough commonly used by the better sort of farmers, is that constructed after the well-known model of Small’s plough. It is made as light as possible, consistently with the strength required, and performs its work very neatly when tolerably well managed. Two horses are employed by our very best farmers to draw a plough; but the country people employ cows, oxen, and horses often in the same team, to the number of six or eight.”

David Ure provided a short, but succinct, account of the implements and machines in Roxburghshire for the Board of Agriculture in 1794. It included the most important implements of the day – ploughs, carts, wagons, fanners, and mills. He notes some of the key members of the agricultural community that introduced improved implements as well as those who were using the latest technologies. His account is quoted at length:

“Small’s two-horse plough is in general use for a light soil; but the common Scotch plough, sometimes of a light construction, is preferred in stiff clay land, especially if new soil is to be raised, or where the course of the furrow is interrupted by large stones. In these cases, the pike sock is best, but is generally disliked by ploughmen, because, according to their manner of working, it does not make a neat furrow. Ploughmen, from an over-fondness of exhibiting what they call fine work, are sometimes induced to reprobate those instruments, and neglect that mode of working, which experience teaches to best for the ground. In Tiviotdale, however, the soil is generally such, that workmen but of ordinary abilities, may give it a beautiful appearance; especially as the climate affords them every advantage that can be derived from it. A ploughman bred on a light soil, which he can work in any manner, at what time, and with what implements he pleases, would make but a sorry figure on a wet stiff soil, full of large stones, and where heavy instruments are necessary. The Scotch plough is furnished, not unfrequently, with the English, or cast iron, mould board.
In the art of ploughing, great advantages are derived from keeping the plough horses in mutual friendship. For this purpose, they are commonly fed together in the same stall, and every method is used to establish between them an unvoidable affection. In accompanying this desirable end, the ploughman of Tiviotdale are highly to be commended. The drill plough for turnips, with its rollers, &c &c is here brought to a great degree of perfection.
The lately invented threshing machine, has found its way into several places of the county, as Melrose, Bowden, Fairnington, &c. Some are wrought by means of water, others by horses. Threshing with the flail, is, however, more generally preferred, from a persuasion that the work is equally cheap, and well done, as with the other. It is also universally believed, that straw recently thrashed, is better for cattle than what is long kept; which last must be the case with most part of the straw threshed with the machine. It is also observed, that horses, having wrought the machine for a day or two, are, for some days afterwards, very much unfit for the cart or plough: they seen to be silly, and stupid. This may be owing to the circular tract in which they are forced to go, when in the machine.
Fanners are universally used. Those that are wrought by the hand, are said, by some people, to clean the corn better than when wrought by the machinery of a mill. The common report in the county is, that the model of this useful machine was, some years since, brought from Holland, by Sir-Douglas of Cavers, Bart. From this model, the first corn fanners in Britain were made, by a person of the name of Andrew Roger, who dwelt at Hawick, and who afterwards made considerable improvements on the machine. He introduced them into Durham, Northumberland, and other places of England. Fanners made to this day by Mr Roger’s descendants, are universally esteemed.
Mills for wheat, oats, and barley, are sufficiently numerous. Lint mills are not plenty in the county. Common prejudice s not in their favour; it being imagined that lint, scotched by hand, is better done than by the mill. This may probably be the case where the mills are ill constructed, and the workmen unskilled or careless. A scutcher usually gets 6d a day, and victuals.
Rollers are much used upon light soils. Mr Church at Eckford, has an improved roller, which, after the ground is well harrowed, makes, by its peculiar construction, a few small drills or furrows at once. Mr Church sows his grain in the broad cast way among the furrows, into which it naturally falls. He frequently hand hoes between the furrows, after the grain is brairded. This practice he finds to be much in favour both of the land and crop.
Open waggons, drawn by two horses in a trace, are commonly ten feet in length, four and three quarters in breadth, and one and three quarters in depth. A common close bodied cart, for two horses, is about five feet and a half in length. Three and a half in breadth, and one and a quarter in depth. The sides and ends are made to slope a little outward. The usual weight, is from seven to nine hundred weight. The cart costs from 5l to 6l sterling. The wheels are about four feet and a half in height. Iron axle-trees are preferred by some, on account of their strength; but in general, are reprobated, from a common belief that they shake the shaft horse too much. The trams are considerably closer at the far, or draught end, than at the body of the cart. They are separate about two feet and three quarters at the former, and three and a half at the latter. This particular construction is, by experienced carters, highly condemned, because the ends of the trams frequently strike the sides and shoulders of the hose, especially on a bad road; but were they nearly as wide as at the body of the cart, the horse would have more freedom to walk with ease. Two horses are almost universally used either for cart or wagon. They are supposed to be indispensibly necessary for bad roads, and long draughts. Single-horse carts and waggons, however, are daily becoming more numerous, and will probably, in a short time, supercede the other. They are found, by experience, to be much easier and safer for the horses; and that three will carry, for any length of road, a draught equal to what is usually drawn by two double-horse carts. But were the Lanarkshire breed of strong draught horses more common in the county, it is likely that a single-horse cart will be found to carry as much as any double-horse cart, by the breed at present encouraged. One driver can manage two single horse carts with as much ease as he can do a double-horse cart. It is necessary, however, that he leave off the absurd and dangerous custom, which is practiced in this and some of the neighbouring counties, of sitting on the cart or wagon, whether empty or full.”

The photographs were taken at the Borders Vintage Rally, May 2016.

This weekend the Scottish National Ploughing Championships are being held at Kelso.

There are many aspects of ploughs and ploughing that have changed over the centuries. But there are also similarities as well.

Robert Douglas, writing his agricultural survey of Roxburghshire in 1797 included a detailed account of ploughs and ploughing in the county. At that time there were a number of types of ploughs available. The key ones were the olden day ploughs, made or largely made of wood – the Old Scots Plough – and the new modern iron plough, invented by James Small of Blackadder Mount. The new ploughs provided a revolution in ploughs and ploughing. Douglas’ account of these is worth quoting at length:

“The Scotch plough, with a long stout beam, and a long narrow point, though still used in stiff clay land, especially when it is to be broken up from grass, and even in light soil, when the furrow is interrupted by stones, has in general given place to the Rotherham plough, improven by Small [James Small]. The former is thought by some to expose a larger surface to the atmosphere, by which the soil, when harrowed, admits of a finer pulverization; but the latter is allowed to make a nearer furrow, as well as to loosen and turn up more earth from the bottom. It is commonly made exactly to Mr Small’s model, with this difference, that the beam is two, and sometimes even four inches longer. The moulds (or mould-boards as they are termed) of cast metal, recommended by the Dalkeith Society of Farmers, are much used; and the head or peak, instead of being covered with plates of iron, is not infrequently made wholly of it, or of cast metal. The shath too or sheath, including the head or peak, is sometimes one entire piece of cast metal. Opinions differ with respect to the structure of the muzzle. All ploughs have a rod of iron, doubled so as to embrace the beam either perpendicularly or horizontally, with four or five holes in that part of it which crosses the point of the beam, in one or other of which the harness is fixed. This bridle, as it is here called, moves upon a strong pin piercing the beam, about four or five inches from its point in some ploughs, and in others about fifteen or sixteen inches. In the former case, the bridle is placed horizontally, and has a long tail, by means of which, the depth of the furrow can be regulated. In the latter case, a piece of wood, with four or five holes in it, is fixed to the end of the beam, sometimes in a horizontal direction, to regulate the width, and sometimes in a perpetual direction, to regulate the depth of the furrow, by means of the bridle, which is always placed the opposite way from the piece of wood. This structure is preferred, as making the draught more steady. And some use a chain, partly to strengthen the beam, and partly to assist the movement of the plough, in very stiff soil, by the shake which it occasions.

The plough is drawn by a strong stretcher, commonly called a two horse tree, with an iron staple in the middle, and a hook in it to go into one of the holes in the bridle, and with two iron ends, in each of which there is a hole to receive a smaller hook, coming from the middle of two lesser stretchers, or single horse trees, to whose extremities the ropes were formerly tied, and now the chains are fastened, which reach from both sides of the collars of two horses placed abreast.”

The photographs were taken at the Scottish Ploughing Championships in 2016.

In 1952 the most frequently used implement to harvest the potato crop was the potato spinner which had been painted nearly a century earlier in 1855.

A number of the key makers of potato spinners from the 1860s and 1870s onwards in Scotland, also continued to make them in the early 1950s. They included J. Bisset & Sons Ltd, Blairgowrie, with its “Empire” digger, available for horse or tractor draught. A. Jack & Sons Ltd, Maybole, had its “Imperial” and “Caledonian” for horse draught. A. & W. Pollock, Machine, had “The Perfect” for horse or tractor draught. John Wallace & Sons Ltd, Glasgow, also had its machines.

In 1871 James Mollison, Ruthven, Alyth, Perthshire exhibited a spinner digger at the Highland Show held in Perth. It was recommended for trial, going on to win a medium silver medal. A decade later, he entered another potato digger for trial. By 1902, the year of his death, he was making an “improved potato digger”.

James Mollison was described as a “well-known figure to the older agriculturists of the county.” He was “born in the parish of Aberlemno some 74 years ago, where he received his schooling and served his apprenticeship. … He worked for some years with the late Mr balfour of Montpelier, also the late Mr Alexander Young, agricultural implement maker, Monifieth. Soon afterwards he accepted a situation in Sweden, which he occupied for some years. Returning to his native country, he was employed at Ruthann for some six months before he entered upon his life-long tenancy of nearly 50 years. Mr Mollison was widely known as a skilful agricultural implement-maker, excelling in the manufacture of ploughs, numbers of which he forwarded to Scotsman in foreign lands. About 1860 he began the manufacture of mowers, and his Isla reaper was favourably known over all the north-east of Scotland. His make of potato diggers was also largely used some years ago. Mr Mollison was predecease a twelvemonth ago by his wife, who was a daughter of the late Mr Lindsay, parochial schoolmaster, Ruthann, and is survived by an only daughter, Mrs George Doe, Errol, who has the sympathy of a large circle of friends in her sudden bereavement. Mr Mollison was an attached member of the Established Church, and for a long number of years affiliated as an elder in Ruthann Parish Church.” (Dundee Courier, 30 September 1902)

The name Cammo Foundry, Duns, will be well-know to some of the readers of this blog. It is a name that can still be seen around the rally field, for example at the Borders Rally and Scotland’s Farming Yesteryear.

Behind the foundry was the name of Thomas Brown & Sons which operated the foundry from at least the 1860s until the 1920s. It described itself as engineers, agricultural implement makers, millwrights, iron founders, mechanical engineers and wholesale ironmongers. Among its manufactures were reapers, mowers, mowing machines, turnip sowing machines, and turnip cutters. Ut was an irregular visitor to the Highland Show, favouring the meetings in Edinburgh, and the borders, for example at Melrose, Kelso and Hawick.

The company was renowned, being awarded a minor silver medal for its collection from the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society in 1875. It was also an innovator, inventing a combined sugar beet and turnip seed sowing machine in 1926.

The head of the firm was Robert Brown. According to the North British Agriculturist in July 1893, “the firm of Messrs Thomas Brown & Sons, Cammo Foundry, Duns, Berwickshire, was established by the late Thomas Brown at Edington, near Berwick-on-Tweed, over forty years ago, who was well known as a plough maker all over the Borders. Ten years later, Mr Brown turned his attention to the making of reapers and mowers, and in this was eminently successful, for, so rapidly did he gain a reputation for the efficiency of his machines, that he found his premises inadequate for a growing trade, and consequently removed to Duns to more commodious premises, where he added to his establishment an iron and brass foundry for producing the castings required for the different implements. Here he carried on the business in partnership with his sons under the title of Thomas Brown & Sons. About ten years ago the firm gave their attention to engine building, turning out in large numbers useful vertical farm engines; and later, to threshing machines, which are now a special branch of their different manufacturers. The growth of their reputation in this department has been a rapid one, for the farming public have been early to recognise in their engines and threshing mills a superiority for efficiency and finish. Two years ago, Messrs Brown’ works were rebuilt with considerable additions, and have been fitted with the most modern iron and wood working machinery for rapid and accurate production. The late Mr Brown, the founder of the firm, who died nearly a year ago, was one of the earliest makers of reapers in this country, and with the stamp of the “Cammo” reaper and mower, his name will be honourably identified all over Scotland and the north of England. The firm is now carried on by the sons, who have been practically trained in all the branches of engineering; and Mr Robert Brown, the eldest son, whose likeness we reproduce, is at the head of the concern.”

A renowned Berwickshire maker that you can still his manufactures today!

The photographs were taken at Farming Yesteryear, September 2018.

The surveyor of the state of agriculture and rural economy of the county of Berwickshire for the Board of Agriculture and Internal Improvement in 1809 provided detailed accounts of the implements and machines developed and used in that county. His account of the threshing mills provides a range of insights into their use among the different social classes, the different types of mills and their history. He states:

“Threshing mills-Very few farms in this county, of any importance, are now without the almost indispensible accommodation of a thrashing mill, going by eater, wind, or horses. Of late, mention has been made of some driven by the power of steam, but they have not yet reached this county.
These machines are now so very universal, that, in a circle of three miles round the residence of the reporter, there are four going by water, four by wind, and ten that are driven by horses. Wind mills, which are very rare in Scotland, because streams are every where to be met with, sufficiient for the universal purpose of corn mills, are now becoming very numerous for thrashing, because streams can seldom be found that will serve for the purpose;a nd they are preferred to horse thrashing mills, especially on large farms, as not interfering with the regular labour. Water is unquestionably the best and most economical power, where it can be had. Of the stem power, for thrashing mills, having no experience whatever, the reporter can give no opinion or account.
Even many small farms have now got small thrashing mills, driven by one or two horses. But hitherto these have not been found to answer nearly so well in proportion, as larger ones, driven by four to six horses. A considerable velocity is required for clean thrashing, which can hardly be given in these small mills, and they require a great many more hands in proportion to attend them, than is required by the larger ones.
Not being the invention of this county, it does not seem necessary to enter into any minute account of their construction; which besides, would require very detailed description, assisted by numerous drawings, to render intelligible and useful. Several unsuccessful attempts were made, many years ago, to contrive a mechanical view of thrashing; but it seems now fully ascertained, that husbandry owes this most excellently efficient, and highly economical contrivance, to the late Mr Meikle, an ingenious mill-wright in Eat Lothian; who likewise introduced, many years ago, from Holland, the vertical mill for making pearl barley. For these services Mr Meikle never received any public reward; and did not even derive any material renumeration from the profits of his employment.
The history and progress of this invention certainly belongs to East Lothian; yet it may be proper to remarks that the late William Crow, esq, of nether Bytes in this county, constructed a working model of a thrashing mill, many years before the contrivance of Mr milk, but upon quite different principles. That by Mr Crow consisted of a series of flails or swipes moved by machinery; which was found tolerably efficient, but dangerous to approach, and very liable to break.
Several other attempts to thrash by machinery were made, in several other districts, both of England and Scotland.
Thrashing mills are very various in their powers and performances, from 12 or 18 bushels of grain in an hour, to 30 or even 60 bushels. All of them separate the grain from the straw, by means of two cylindrical rakes, which toss the straw in opposite directions, and finally deliver it into the straw barn; while the shaken out grain and chaff fall through grated hoppers, and pass through at least one winnowing machines, which separates the chaff. The chaff is blown out into a small separate apartment, allotted for its reception, and the grain is delivered into a room with a boarded floor. It is afterwards fully dressed up for market in that corn room, by a separate winnowing machine driven by hand, called manners, and by means of riddles, sieves and rees, to separate the light grain and small seeds from the good grain.
Small threshing mills, to be driven by one horse or two, have been made for from L15 to L30. But there are generally very imperfect instruments; and for the most part, wanting the necessary strength in the connection of their parts together, they soon work loose, and become altogether inefficient. A good, strong, and powerful machine, to go with four or six horses, may be constructed for from L60 to L80; besides the necessary additions to, and alterations of the barn, and the building for supporting the horse wheel; in all from L100 to L150. The building of a tower,the sails of the windmill, and the machinery connecting this with the thrashing mill, may occasion an additional expense of from L150 to L200. The expenses attending a water thrashing mill, as dependant upon a multiplicity of varying circumstances, cannot be averaged.
Many farmers have a pair of mill-stones connected with the machinery of their thrashing mills, for bruising corn or beans for horses, or for grinding for the uses of their families and servants; but this is considerably hampered by the circumstances of thirlage, already explained. To the thrashing mill, likewise, more especially when driven by wind or water, a straw cutting machine may be very advantageously connected.
Winnowing machines-The winnowing machine is in absolutely universal use, for dressing grain of all kinds; and is said to have been originally derived from Holland or Flanders, or according to some, from the East Indies or from China. In its origin, it was extremely simple, consisting only of a wheel with four sails or fans, of thin board or sheet iron, made to revolve with great rapidity in a close drum or chamber of the machine, so as to occasion a strong wind by a narrow aperture, through which the grain was made to fall gradually. This artificial wind blows the chaff and light grains behind the machine, and the good grain falls by its superior weight directly though the streams of air. It has been improved considerably, by the adapting of different wire sieves or riddles, shaken by the machinery; and the good grain now falls along a sloping harp or declivity of iron wires with small intervals, for separating small seeds.
After all, the industrious use of the riddle, is still indispensable, for perfect dressing; and the following is a general account of the whole progress of cleaning or dressing grain in the corn room. As it falls from the winnowing machine attached to the thrashing mill, into the corn room, it enters by two apertures one of which delivers the best grain,a nd the other the lighter; but from the rapid action of the mill, and the large quantities rushing at once through the stream of air in the attached winnowing machine, the separation is by no means perfect, and many broken straws and some chaff re intermixed with both. One or two women, according to the power of the thrashing mill, are stationed in the corn room to receive the grain, who riddle the two deliveries into separate heaps; all the refuse of the first being thrown to the second, and the refuse of the second being laid into a third heap.
The regular dressing is afterwards performed, when the hurry of thrashing is over; and the steps of this varies according to circumstances. The third heap is often first dressed in the winnowing machine; its best produce is issued into the second heap. The second heap is next dressed, often twice or three times, riddled each time, and its best produce thrown into the first original heap. This first, or best part of the grain is now dressed by the winnowing machine, once or oftener, it seems to require, riddling each time, and when considered enough, is measured up for market or use.
All the out-dressings are now carefully dressed again by themselves, as a kind of second, inferior, or lighter grain; and is either sold separately, reserved for family use, or give to the work horses. The final refuse is used for the poultry or pigs, or given to calves or young cattle, sometimes boiled.
A good winnowing machine, of the best construction, costs about seven guineas. it is driven by hand, and requires at least four persons to drive, feed, and riddle the grain. it might be very conveniently attached to the machinery of the thrashing mill, and driven by that power, which would save one persons wages: Yet in that way its motion could hardly admit of being regulated, according to circumstances, nearly so well as by hand.
Chaff cutters and bruisers-Neither of these implements are in anything like general use in this county, for bruising corn and beans. Chaff cuter, if though necessary, might be easily added in the same manner. Mr Fordyce of Ayton has a chaff-cuter upon one of the farms of his own possession, but has not hitherto been followed by the farmers; at least, so far as has come to the knowledge of the reporter,there are extremely few of these implements in this county.”

The photographs are from the Scottish National tractor show, September 2014.